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Friends, family join to support stricken mom

From Left Cyndi Haifley watches her son Aidan walk to his dad Jeff at a fundraiser for her at the Canyon View Church Sunday night. Family and friends, including Troy Campbell, second from right, of Fruita, gathered to help the couple with medical expenses.

By {screen_name}
Monday, November 3, 2008

Jesse Pollard was with Cyndi Haifley when the call came that Cyndi’s infant son, Aidan, had been badly injured in an accident at home. She was with Cyndi, too, when they learned Cyndi’s husband, Jeff, had suffered a grand mal seizure.

So when Cyndi was diagnosed with cancer in June and had a tumor removed from her appendix in September, Pollard wondered what she would do if she found herself living the same nightmare. The two women are the same age, and their children are only a month apart in age.

Pollard doubted she could handle things as well as Cyndi has.

“She was scared, but she had such a peace,” Pollard said of her 28-year-old friend. “It was pretty amazing.”

There Pollard was again on Sunday night, sitting at the same table with Cyndi at Canyon View Vineyard Church. This time, they were joined by dozens of other people who turned out for a night of dinner and dancing to raise money for the Haifley family.

The Haifleys have health insurance, but traveling from their Montrose home to and from Grand Junction and Denver for Cyndi’s surgery and the family’s assorted medical appointments and check-ups have sapped the Haifleys financially.

Family and friends have raised roughly $11,000 in less than a month for the Haifleys, with most of those donations coming Sunday night. Dinner was $10 for adults and free for children, yet organizers discovered some people writing $1,000 checks.

“I don’t even have words for it,” Cyndi said of the support the family has received, as a line for the food formed in the church’s chapel.

Pollard said she admires how Cyndi has taken a business-like approach to her surgery and recovery and how Jeff has balanced his work as a Montrose police officer with his life at home.

“If anything we do can help someone else and something good can come out of it, then that’s great,” Cyndi said.